Personal

   Now that I realize, I had confused two very different notions. One was being alone. The other was being lonely. I had thought once that I loved being lonely. You know, just a misunderstood soul wandering about, having deep thoughts about humanity and myself. I thought that I loved to be away from everyone because I had so much within me that it was better for others to be away. I was so full of myself, I didn’t even notice how I really felt, and deluding myself into thinking I loved the sound of silence, the sound of the void awaiting all of us. It was all a big confusion and the worst thing is I think I had always known but I wanted to believe so bad I was a special human being, with characteristics no other could have. The truth is no one is unique, not at all.

 The truth is I hate being lonely because it makes me feel sad and depressed. When I’m lonely, I slowly slide down to a point where everything is awful and I stop liking anything and everything. It has always been difficult for me to like myself, to take a look in the mirror and be positive, somehow, about what I see. When I’m alone that’s always difficult, but I’m able to pull through. But when I’m lonely, the story is different: I hate myself so much right then and there. I would want to smash the mirror I’m looking to or my head, if what I’m doing is only imagining myself. It can be awful sometimes, but I guess darkness hasn’t got the right angle yet, as I’m still here.

 I hate people or at least think I hate them all. Always so happy about nothing, proud about a bunch of things I find utterly ridiculous. If I were brave, I would be a bully, someone who wouldn’t think twice before smashing someone head against a wall. But I’ve never being that person never had the amount of courage needed to speak up or to act according to my emotions. And if I do, it’s usually too little too late.  In this era of bullies and bullying, I have never being the one to do it but haven’t really being a victim of it. Shall I cry and despair because they mocked me behind my back or because I was a laugh playing sports? No, that was my reality and I lived with it. That’s what I did and I think I would do it all the same again if I could.

 Because many of these problems started in school, that’s obvious. Before that I had no intention or need to look at myself and then at others and compare what I saw. But even at age ten, I already knew that there were people that were deemed “better”. You know the kind, those damn people who were smart, bright, and very witty with the words and had a very physical self also. They had it all and if they screwed it up they could try it again and again until they were successful. Me, not so much. Once I sucked at something, usually I would suck at it for many years. Even teachers knew that.

 After all, I was educated in the European tradition and they don’t fuck around with education. Not at all. They want their students to know it all and know it good. Which was a shame because I didn’t get all and what I did know fluctuated in time. I was never the perfect student, not even if I was good at a couple of subjects. That only meant I had a lifeline I could use not to be completely fucked by life, but I was fucked only that less violently, if you will. I would have given it all to be one of those nerds, to humiliate everyone at least once. A jock? No, that would have made even me laugh very hard and it wouldn’t have made sense at all. The point of it all was that no matter what, I was lonely and that affected it all.

 If I had had friends, not like occasional “let’s talk” people but real fucking friends, maybe everything would have been different. Maybe if someone had needed me back then I would be, at least, much more confident now and even with a more tenacious personality. Of course, that would make me a very different person but that’s kind of the point. If I hadn’t been alone and feeling the loneliness even from that age, I do think that the road would have been at least a bit better. But well, that’s me, always thinking about what could have been. The truth is that I don’t believe things can just change, I don’t think that I can be spontaneous and positive and social just out of nowhere. That would just scare the fuck out everyone around me, I know as much.

Anyway, that’s what being lonely is. You just don’t believe in change and also because change doesn’t exist when you’re a human being. I have never really seen anyone change and if they do it it’s not because they have actually modified their way of seeing the world. It’s because they have been scared to death by the apparent closeness of death or failure or something that they dread. Changing out of fear is the only real modification people do in their lives and that doesn’t count as you are probably faking in it all, just not to be targeted by whatever you’re scared about. Like if I became very social out of fear to die a lonely crazy guy.

 It’s all applicable anywhere in your life. You can feel both lonely and alone in every situation you face.  The all-mighty love, for example. That thing people feel in their guts, like a balloon that, if not controlled properly, can explode inside of you and make you feel like garbage. Well, that balloon can make you feel very lonely when the other person doesn’t even know you’re there or, worse, doesn’t really care about your existence. Because those couples that last a hundred years, that’s just two people scared shitless that they will never find anyone else in their lives to put up with their shit. So they play it safe and stay with the same person for years and years and years until society pressures marriage upon them.

 Romantic, isn’t it? Yeah, it is. But the real way to feel lonely in all this love context is simply when no one even looks at you. And don’t I know it? I have profound experience on being “looking” for so long that it’s no longer funny. I believe I have gone through most stages a man goes through sexually and romantically without even sharing them with anyone. It maybe why I hate other people, especially men. Complaining and whining about how their life is awful because their boyfriend spends one less hour with them now that he owns a company. Well, I feel so bad for you… Fuckers. That’s what being lonely does to you: if you don’t die, you turn into a very cold and bitter bitch.

 And I have to say I like it. After all, my personality saves me everyday and makes me be “en garde” all day, all the time. Not that I have a lot of things dawning on me or anything but I think I’m an expert now on how to manage some feelings. I have been sad many times before, feeling that anxiety and the need to leave it all and just go. But I know how to control all of that, and swallow it all in order to keep going. Why? I have no idea. I’m not one of those people that’s in love with life or the beauty of it or some of that stupid stuff. I just do it because I have a survival instinct that just doesn’t let me do anything against myself. And I guess that’s good or at least not bad. I mean, I don’t feel lonely every second of my life.

 At times, many times, I do feel happy and I love the few but very important people I have close to my soul. Now, more than anytime before, I have them all in my heart because I need them. It’s selfish, of course it is, but that’s life and I’m not larger that life or better than it. I’m just a tiny part of the whole scheme, so I just do as I feel. Granted, men only want me to fuck me and that’s it, so there’s no love then or in the near future but that I don’t care. The rest of my life is still standing on tiny little sticks and I’d rather have all of that settled on cement before I advance to more “ethereal” subjects such as love. There will be a time for me to do all of that but it isn’t now. You’ll know, I guess.

 My fear, however, is that I engulf so much trying to get by that someday I would explode trying to defend myself against all those things I have in my head. Because I’m no ignorant: it’s still all there, trying to get me every single second. It rests for a long time and then awakens again, ready to fight me to check on my defense. Battles and battles have been fought and they have always concluded when those feelings surrender and they realize I’m not weak enough for them to win. And it’s not that I become the winner, they just decide no to keep fighting. I dread of the day they stop doing that, surrendering. That day when they will not stop and when just keep going, certain of their victory.